, and the fingers which played
them--ingenious guesses, clever misses--the tragedy of harmony as well
as its "Io Paean!"

There were wind instruments, quaint old double flutes from Italy; pipes,
single, double, treble, from ages much further back; harps--Assyrian,
Greek, and Roman; instruments of percussion, guitars, and zithers in
every form and kind; a dulcimer--I took it up and thought of Coleridge's
"damsel with a dulcimer;" and a grand organ, as well as many incipient
organs, and the quaint little things of that nature from China, Japan,
and Siam.

I stood and gazed in wonder and amazement.

"Surely the present Graf has not collected all these instruments!" said
I.

"Oh, no, _mein Fraeulein_; they have been accumulating for centuries.
They tell strange tales of what the Sturms will do for music."

With which he proceeded to tell me certain narratives of certain
instruments in the collection, in which he evidently firmly believed,
including one relating to a quaint old violin for which he said a
certain Graf von Rothenfels called "Max der Tolle," or the Mad Count
Max, had sold his soul.

As he finished this last he was called away, and excusing himself, left
me. I was alone in this voiceless temple of so many wonderful sounds. I
looked round, and a feeling of awe and weirdness crept over me. My eyes
would not leave that shabby old fiddle, concerning whose demoniac origin
I had just heard such a cheerful little anecdote. Every one of those
countless instruments was capable of harmony and discord--had some time
been used; pressed, touched, scraped, beaten or blown into by hands or
mouths long since crumbled to dust. What tales had been told! what
songs sung, and in what languages; what laughs laughed, tears shed, vows
spoken, kisses exchanged, over some of those silent pieces of wood,
brass, ivory, and catgut! The feelings of all the histories that
surrounded me had something eerie in it.

I stayed until I began to feel nervous, and was thinking of going away
when sounds from a third room drew my attention. Some one in there began
to play the violin, and to play it with no ordinary delicacy of
manipulation. There was something exquisitely finished, refined, and
delicate about the performance; it lacked the bold splendor and
originality of Eugen's playing, but it was so lovely as to bring tears
to my eyes, and, moreover, the air was my favorite "Traumerei."
Something in those sounds, too, was familiar to me. W